Maybe Trying to Play College Football During a Pandemic Wasn't a Great Idea

Plowing ahead with the 2020 college football season as the COVID-19 pandemic raged never seemed like a great idea. I get why it's happening -- college athletic departments need money to stay afloat -- but we all knew from the start things could go south in a hurry. Well, that happened this week.

The SEC bulldozed forward with its season this year and has faced a rash of postponed games. The conference was hit with four postponements this week, including No. 1 Alabama at LSU and three other games involving top-25 teams. No. 5 Texas A&M is facing an outbreak, as are LSU and Mississippi State, while a number of Missouri's players have to quarantine due to contact tracing.

It's not just the SEC that's in trouble, though. No. 3 Ohio State's matchup with Maryland this Saturday has been canceled and won't be made up. Maryland is facing an outbreak, so it isn't the Buckeyes' fault this is happening. It also means Ohio State will only play seven games this season which could hurt them when it comes time for selecting teams for the College Football Playoff.

The Pac-12's opening weekend was also a disaster. All-in-all, more than 50 FBS games have been canceled or postponed since the season started.

The problem here is you're going to wind up with teams in contention having played a different number games than each other. This week, No. 10 Indiana travels to play Michigan State, then will travel to Columbus to play the Buckeyes coming off a newly-placed bye. Ohio State was always going to beat Indiana, but the Big Ten built this season around not having any off weeks. Now the best team in the conference gets one.

On top of that, do we actually think the SEC will be able to fit all of its games in with no more hiccups? The pandemic is raging nationally at record numbers. This thing isn't going away. We're going to get some makeup games but the conference will run out of time trying to fit others in.

I'm not suggesting the NCAA stop this madness; we're too far along for that to happen. But we shouldn't expect anything like smooth sailing for the rest of the year. Team selections for conference championship games could be a disaster and the seeding and selection of the CFP teams will be positively bonkers. No one will agree on anything and everyone will have a legitimate beef.

This wasn't a great idea from the start and we're seeing a disaster play out in real time.